Happily Bornu was established on a more stable basis than Songhay. It had more cohesion in its various elements, and was less dependent on the warlike character of its rulers to keep it from falling to pieces. Its princes also seem to have been of a better and more liberal-minded stock. We even gather from the native chronicles that they were “learned, liberal towards the Ilama, prodigal dispensers of alms, friends of science and religion, gracious and compassionate towards the poor.” Hence it was that while Songhay and other states rose and fell, Bornu retained its position and independence. In the beginning of this century it experienced a temporary eclipse before the conquering arms of the Fillani in their mission of religious regeneration, but only to emerge again as vigorous as ever, though now restricted in its political influence to Bornu proper and the immediate neighbourhood of Lake Chad.
But while Songhay and Bornu were for centuries working out their remarkable political, religious, social, and commercial development, they were, as we have already pointed out, by no means shut off from intercourse with the outside world. The thirst for the slaves of Bornu and for the gold of Melli and the Upper Niger was almost as potent a force with the later generations of Arabs as was religious zeal among their ancestors. For the one as for the other all the terrors of the desert route were braved, and constant communication kept up with the Sudan. At first Egypt seems to have been the first point of departure of the Sudanese caravan, one route passing westward to Songhay and the region of the Upper Niger, while another diverged from it, and passed south to the Chad basin. In later times Egypt gave place to Tripoli as the starting-point, though practically the same routes were utilised to reach the same goals. At an early period also the most dangerous part of the whole Sahara, that region, namely, lying between the Upper Niger and Morocco, was traversed by indefatigable Moorish traders for the sake of its slaves and gold. The terminus of their route was at first considerably to the west of Timbuktu, at a place called Biru or Walata, where, indeed, nearly all the western trans-Saharan traffic converged in the earlier days of commercial intercourse.